Amnesty's water report: "Israel-apartheid" allegations

October 29, 2009

The release of Amnesty International’s report “Troubled Waters – Palestinians Denied Fair Access to Water” coincides with a campaign alleging that “Israel’s Control of Water [is] a Tool of Apartheid and a Means of Ethnic Cleansing.” BDS activist Omar Barghouti will conduct a speaking tour in the United States. Additionally, Amnesty-UK is hosting a “discussion” with Ben White (October 28, 2009), author of Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide. His lecture is entitled “Discriminatory and unsustainable: Water and politics in Israel & the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

The Amnesty report includes allegations that Israeli “restrictions are imposed on all Palestinians because they are Palestinians” (emphasis original) and Israel “restrict[s] access to water as a means of expulsion.”

Amnesty’s report also contains false statements, as noted by CAMERA, and misleading statistics such as annual consumption figures that deliberately omit water sold by Israel to the Palestinian Authority.

In “Troubled Waters,” Amnesty patronizingly assumes that the Palestinian leadership is incapable of negotiating agreements, and explains that they rejected signed agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, including Oslo, because they “codified inequality in access to water resources.”